


Prologue: The Modest Beginnings of Greatness

by SynysterLovely



Series: The Tales of Iskyla Stormblade Septim [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Foreshadowing, I made up some of the lore sue me, Like almost entirely foreshadowing, Mentions of Insanity, Only mentioned in passing if you squint, Ties into Oblivion, Vague mentions of non-con and abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-25 00:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4939360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SynysterLovely/pseuds/SynysterLovely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The beginnings of my fave OC Dragon born Iskyla Stormblade. Ripped from her home in Riverwood at the young age of 15, she has spent 14 years in the Imperial Prison for Talos Worship. An old acquaintance of the Champion of Cyrodiil helps move the hands of fate along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prologue: The Modest Beginnings of Greatness

Screaming, crying and vomiting. That’s all anyone ever hears in this place anymore. I’ve been here so long I’ve heard people slowly go insane. Dreams of home are the only thing that keep me going anymore. 

Every single day goes the exact same way. The guards come in shortly after the sun rises, screaming and yelling and being unruly. They throw us scraps of bread and water, if we’re lucky. If you don’t finish by the time they come back, they take it from you. The ones marked for labor then get cuffed up and dragged out to the carts that take us to whatever menial labor they have intended us for that day. Usually ripping down statues of the God they don’t deem worthy of worship. It feels like blasphemy every time I move to tear one down. 

When the sun begins to set, they load us back up into the carts and wheel us back to where we started. If we’re lucky, we get put back in our cells. More often than not, I get dragged of to be used by whatever guard or elf wants their kicks, either pleasure or pain.

I’ve been alone for so long now. I don’t know how much longer I can stay here and keep sane. Repeating the prayer of Talos that my mother taught me helps to a point, but there is only so much drudgery a person can take. Talos give me strength. Give me the strength to get out of here. Give me the strength to keep going. 

My body curls in on myself as I repeat the prayer over and over. I can’t lose faith. I won’t lose faith. I can’t let them win. I can’t let them take the last shred of myself away from me. 

The screams of someone losing their final grips on sanity echo through the hallways. A clatter of slamming doors drowns out the noise as a regiment of red clad guards noisily make their way down the hallway towards the screams. Their acting fast tonight. Normally it will take hours for them to do anything, if not waiting until morning. 

Pushing myself forward, I press against the bars and peer down the hallway. They’re beyond sight by the time I look. The wood elf across the way glares at me through the bars. I have to wonder how long he’s been here, how many people he’s seen in this cell. The yelling escalates and sounds as if it’s coming closer. I move back, and the dunmer across the way follows suit. It’s always best to keep the guard’s attentions off of you. 

The screaming gets closer and closer and becomes more and more manic. The guards walk by, literally dragging a dunmer woman behind them. Scratches cover her arms and there are patches of hair missing where she had pulled them out. Poor woman. I feel bad for some of the mer. Their lives are so much longer and they are stuck here much longer than any man. Nobody gets released from this side of the prison. 

Most of us here are or were Talos worshippers. Many have lost faith in the last years. The raids after the war brought most of us here. I was fifteen when I was dragged out of Riverwood and my adoptive parents were killed. The door at the end of the row slams shut and echoes through the cells. The minute chatter starts up again. I have been without a cell mate in so long I forget what it’s like to have a normal conversation. 

Scooting back in my cell I press myself up against the small slit in the wall that serves as a window. It’s just big enough to give a glimpse of the outside world. A small glimmer of hope in a life of misery and torture. Water shines in the distance, glimmering in the faint moonlight. I long to touch it, to touch anything but stone and straw. My fingers reach out and lightly trace the stones outlining the slim window. It’s funny how devotion to a God can turn into a life sentence. 

The sharp sound of someone forcefully grabbing the bars blocking the entrance to a cell breaks the quiet. A lot of the quiet conversations have ceased in favor of sleep. I know there is no one in any of the cells adjacent to mine beyond the grumpy dunmer across the way. Out of curiosity, I peer back towards the hallway and find the dunmer desperately grabbing the bars of his cell and staring intently at me. Cautiously, I move to the front of my cell and look back at him. 

“You know,” he starts, his voice rough from disuse. “You remind me a lot of someone that once sat in that very cell. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it.” I raise my eyebrow at him, but don’t offer any response. “It took a long time to place. That’s probably because the person sat in that cell two hundred years ago, and they were only there for about a week.” I squint at him. Two hundred years was a long time ago. 

“You have the same hair as her. White. She was a Nord too. I thought white hair was only common in Altmer and the old, but you are most definitely not old and neither was she.” He broke off into a manic giggle before continuing. I have to wonder how much of his sanity is intact. “You only hear so much while trapped in this stone box, but I heard she went on to be the Champion of Cyrodiil, the saviour of Tamriel.”

I cock my head and stare at him a good long time. The Champion of Cyrodiil. A white haired Nord that once stayed in this very cell. The hand of fate was knocking and I can hear it’s call. What about, I am not sure, but the feeling lingers steady and true.

“What of it?” I manage in reply. He grabs the bars again in a fit of desperation. Something akin to panic sets in his eyes.

“Don’t tell me you don’t feel it too,” he exclaimed, his breath quick. “The hands of fate are calling. I’ve seen things happen in this prison that could only have been tempted by the Gods. A Septim walked through that cell! Emperor Uriel himself! I saw it with my own eyes!” His voice increased in pitch and becomes more and more desperate with every exclamation. 

“Why would a Septim walk through a prison cell.” He laughed again high and shrill and my eyes flit to the door at the end of the hall praying it doesn’t alert the guards. 

“They see things, things others can’t. Dragonborn. Their blood is different. Their soul is different. They all got the blood,” he stops and giggles again. “The fates are calling! Can’t you feel them? I told the other white-haired Nord she was going to die in here but she didn’t! And neither are you!” His laugh calls again, loud and shrill and mad. “I’ve had dreams of you Nord, and of the Champion and the Septims. You are both. I've seen your blood. You're not supposed to be here. You're supposed to be out there!" His laughter grows louder every time and he appears to be manic. "Oh, but I know how to help the Gods. I can help the never-ending hands of fate. I've seen things."

I raise my eyebrows. How much of what he is saying is actually true and not hallucinations from madness. I am both? I have no connections with the Septims or the Champion. They are only history, stories I was told in my childhood.

"I know how to get you out of here," he giggles. My vision snaps back up to him.

"You better not be joking with me, dunmer," I state harshly. Hope is difficult to come by and too easily destroyed. Sanity is too hard to hold onto without false hopes being jammed into your head. 

"I would never joke about the tapping of the hands of fate. A Septim walked through that cell. His last walk. An escape route. The guards have forgotten it. Knowledge lost when the Blades died. Was used by the Blades to get Emperors out if the city was attacked. Uriel and the Champion were the last to use it. And now you are going to use it. The guards won't be back. They made it look like they did their job when they dragged that dunmer out of here." His laugh is low and menacing this time. I glance around my cell.

"What are you talking about? I have never heard of any of this!" I reply, breathless. The idea is too tempting, too dangerous.

“Oh ho ho. These things have not been in stories. I have seen these things with my own eyes!” he nearly shouts, ending with another manic laugh. My eyes dart back to the door, but no one comes. “The northeastern wall. It opens. I don’t know what’s on the other side, but it opens.”

I stare at him a moment longer before my logic leaves me and I spring into action. It’s only a few seconds before that sense of logic is back beating me in the back of the skull trying to remind me that this elf seems mad. However, the meddling hands of fate spur me to keep going. 

My fingers wildly feel around every stone in the wall; every bump in the masonry. One of the bricks loosens slightly and my fingers pry at the movement. A low grating sound fills the room and I glance down the hall again at the doorway. No signs of movement or noise.

When I finally brave a look back, the wall behind the archway is nearly gone leaving a gaping hole that opens into what looks like a hallway. My hands start shaking. Finally a way out of here. If only it had come a few years sooner. I shake my head violently forcing the thought out of my head. 

“Why wait to tell me about this until now? I’ve sat in this cell for years, just wasting away. Why wait until now? Why couldn’t you have told me two years ago!?” my voice increases in volume and pitch until it cracks and breaks during the last sentence. After composing myself I look back at the elf. His face is oddly serious for how he had been sounding only moments before. 

“Sanity is hard to hold onto after over two hundred years in a stone box. The last hundred years have been harder to hold onto. I fade in and out and the gods have granted me a sacred breath of sanity so I can do their will. I was not sane enough to make the connections between you and what the gods have told me and that cell. I would have told you sooner if I was able. I know how difficult it is to lose the few people you care about in a box like this.” I stare at him. His tone of voice is different and his face is deadly serious. A true glimpse of sanity in a box of insanity. 

“I’ll come back for you,” I whisper. He shakes his head.

“I am meant to die here. I can only pray that that release will come sooner, rather than later. I am not a good person and I never will be. I accepted this fact a long time ago.” I nod and face the opening in the wall again. “Go!” he urges. “Go do the great things the Gods have planned for you. I’ll try my best to keep the guards from looking for you so you have a fighting chance.”

“Thank you. I don’t even know your name.”

“Valen Dreth. Let this be the one good thing I do in life. Now go, before the guard decide they want to do something.”

“Thank you Valen,” I reply as I walk through the archway and on towards my freedom. A small button just inside the archway slides the secret entrance shut behind me. Magicka start slowly flowing through my body again, still muddled from being so close to the spells, but enough that I can feel it. A laugh breaks free and I dance. I feel the first true joy I have felt in years.


End file.
